The Desert is...

Dome and pillared rocks
thrusting from Earth's naked belly.
Scrubby shrubs asking nothing
but a piece of stony ground.
Life that requires precious little,
gives nothing,
shares less,
except to give us pause to wonder
about a place
where survival is little more than risk.
Tiny drops of precious water
'neath seamless sky burning hot,
except when thunder heads
raise their glorious anvil towers.
Saguaros tall and battered,
ugly, but resilient.
Utilitarian life that asks no quarter
but survives in hostile places.
Melodious wrens at home midst
spiny cacti, yucca, and mesquite.
Canyons cutting deep,
revealing what has gone before.
Arches so impressive that we stand in awe.

Traces of people long since gone,
proving that man has not domain
in arid places where life is sparse.
Ruins high above the desert floor.
Black holes in walls of stone,
windows to the past.
Ghostly eyes watching
as we disturb what's left,
as we move without respect
bones that were once hidden
'neath muscle, blood, and skin.
Bones that once supported
a beating heart with lungs
that breathed fresh desert air--
a frame that once contained a soul.
Shards and kivas, alone, left to bake
in the unrelenting sun.

Dark winds, Sons of light.
Daughters of the desert.
Despite its hardships
this arid place tugs the soul
as it shares the basics
like a skeleton revealed.
Is there a place
closer to the Gods than this?
I think not.

Vi
©August 2005